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Publishers Protest Google Library Project
gollum123 writes "A group of academic publishers is challenging Google Inc.'s plan to scan millions of library books into its Internet search engine index, highlighting fears that the ambitious project will violate copyrights and stifle future sales. In a letter scheduled to be delivered to Google Monday, the Association of American University Presses described the online search engine's library project as a troubling financial threat to its membership -- 125 nonprofit publishers of academic journals and scholarly books. The university presses depend on books sales and other licensing agreements for most of their revenue, making copyright protections essential to their survival."
Making the texts searchable - provided they only show a small snippet and a reference to the book for the rest - sounds EXACTLY like fair use to me.
Especially for academic papers, where being able to find the reference is critical to advancement of the field, and the citer would have to obtain and read more than the snippet anyhow.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I think the goal was more along the lines of cultural enrichment, but perhaps that is an outdated idea.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
The point is moot. Google is only going to offer those works that are out of copyright (70 years after the death of the author I *think*) so no one should be making money off them in the first place.
About a month ago I was talking to my wife (a librarian) about the prospect of these books being available for electronic "readers". Basically a tablet you could download the books to and read. I thought it would be great if the display was good enough.
She looked at me like I was some kind of alien or something.
Apparently for some people, the tactile (feel of the paper & book), auditory (sound of the pages turning) and olfactory (smell of the book) senses are all part of the "reading experience". And they take it serious!
I just had to ask her if she really preferred to spend her time with heavy, smelly things that mostly just sit around and take up space.
She just mentioned something about being married to me.
Plus they don't go obsolete.
They don't require special equipment or power sources to use.
One book is very cheap compared to a digital book reader.
Can be dropped, kicked, thrown, sat on, with no real damage.
Can be partially destroyed without total data loss.
Can even stand a fair amount of water damage, with proper care for recovery.
Books don't have all the advantages, but they sure do have some real big ones.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.